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Planet Box Lunch Box Review

Hooray for the three day weekend! I usually post our weekend reading, but I don't know how we'll get much reading done! Tomorrow we have a Girl Scout parade, I must get my lines down for Caesar, I need to see two plays in their last or only weekend, the girls have a play date set up...

If we get to do our bedtime reading, then it's still My Father's Dragonand On the Banks of Plum Creek. Big Sis has to start reading 20 minutes a day for 20 days each month, as part of school. We decided that she reads well enough on her own, so instead of counting our books together, we'll set a timer and she'll do some independent reading. Some friends gifted us with their daughter's old copies of one of the Rainbow Fairies series. We may try those first.

One of the things I won't be doing this weekend is packing lunches, a chore I used to detest. When Big Sis started kindergarten last year, our family made the decision to pack healthy cold lunches for her to take to school. We let her pick out a new lunchbox, a sandwich and snack keeper that came with cold packs that fit in the lids, a new water bottle. The problem is time. She seems to have very little time to eat, and a lot of food was being wasted. Her water bottle was difficult for her to open. She had trouble getting the lids on and off the containers. By the end of the year, our healthy, creative lunches had become far less creative, and while pretty healthy, very repetitive. I hoped things would change in first grade, but the first week of school went by and lunch was still half-eaten (if we were lucky).

I began scouring the internet for new ideas. I made a Pinterest board (props to Melissa for inspiring me with hers). I figured out what she seemed to eat best. And finally, I made it to this website, one I first visited a few years ago.

I first discovered Planet Box via a Facebook link by family music artist Elizabeth Mitchell. In fact, if you check the links on her website, you'll find a listing under products, as it is her sister who created Planet Box. It always seemed like an awesome idea, but these are very expensive lunch boxes. I don't spend this much money on clothes for the girls, let alone a lunch box! But I found myself telling the hubby about them, and he asked to see the website. We watched the videos together, and what we loved best was this: all you have to do is flip open the box, and your food is there. There are a couple of small stainless containers for wetter foods or dressings or dips, but all you do is pull off the lids - you don't screw or unscrew them like a jar lid.

And the boxes are plain stainless boxes, with a carrying case. They come with cute magnets that we could change out later, if we wanted. We could reuse all the cold packs from last year. We could call it an "investment lunch box." After all, what's to stop her from using it all through high school?

We made the splurge. And....?

She's eating lunch!

She says it's so much easier to dig into her meal, because all she has to do is open one box, maybe pop a little lid off or two, and eat! I've been photographing the meals in the mornings, in order to compare the contents to what is left when she comes home. There might be a few leftovers here and there, but for the most part, lunch is being consumed!

The little kawaii sandwiches in the last picture come via my other goofy splurge.

Oooo! Japanese instructions!

The skewer idea has been especially successful. She loves to eat her little salads on sticks.

She still comes home hungry, but now it's just because of a long day, not because she hasn't eaten a decent meal since breakfast. We are very happy with our investment lunch box. Perhaps we'll invest in a second one for Little Sis next year. The hubby admits to wanting one of the bigger boxes for himself, too.

Merry Labor Day Weekend! I'll leave you with a little Elizabeth Mitchell, a song from our favorite CD You Are My Little Bird.

Good grief! That is such a cool lunch box!!! I wish I'd known about it 3 weeks ago. Poor Dax's lunch was a mess when we opened it today (I've been going to school everyday at lunch this week to help teach adults how to draw up his insulin correctly- he's diabetic) Anyways he was super sad when he opened it up and things had gotten all messy. grrrr. Maybe I'll just have to splurge on one of these boxes anyway.

She had such a cute lunch box last year, and all the little containers seemed so great, but the lids were such a pain. I wound up reverting to a lot of wasteful baggies and individually packaged items like applesauce. We have had it for exactly one week. (It shipped so fast!) So far, it really has been a great purchase. The first week of school, she came home so lethargic. Now she definitely has more energy!

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